"It is right not only for investors," said Mr de Rivaz, "but for consumers as well."

But why charging consumers for a product they don’t need is 'right' is extremely hard to understand. Here at Greenpeace we’ve been trying to think of another industry that could get away with such barefaced cheek. How would you feel if a baker knocked at your door demanding money even though you didn’t want the bread he’s made?

It is currently in secret talks with the UK government trying to agree to a figure. Estimates say this will be close to 95-99 pounds per MWh. Basically they want to force UK consumers to pay double the current price for electricity for the next 25 years. That’s more than wind power costs right now.

Does that sound like value for money for UK taxpayers? Is it ‘right’ for consumers, Mr de Rivaz?

Where does this leave us? In a speech this week, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said "countries that prioritise green energy will secure the biggest share of jobs and growth in a global low-carbon sector set to be worth US$4 trillion by 2015" and that the UK should be "a global showcase for green innovation and energy efficiency."

With its waste of time, taxpayer and consumer money and vital resources, its toxic legacy, its incompetence, blackmail and broken promises and its way of frightening investors, nuclear power just doesn’t fit anywhere in Mr Cameron’s vision.

Greenpeace is calling for the UK to abandon its nuclear plans and turn the prime minister’s words into reality.

Alishaw,
the Bloomberg article you posted says "All but two of Japan’s 50 reactors are shut", which is exactly what I am saying. In th...

Alishaw,
the Bloomberg article you posted says "All but two of Japan’s 50 reactors are shut", which is exactly what I am saying. In this case "shut" means cold shutdown. One of the skills required to an engineer is being able to read carefully -- and also think out of the box, especially if you should face an emergency situation.

ALL reactors in northern Japan have been damaged by the 2011 earthquake; after undamaged reactors were shut down for scheduled maintenance across 2011/12 they were not given permission to restart (except for two units at Oi).

Some Japanese want to exit nuclear now, others want to exit it as soon as possible; the total of the two is largely above 50%. Polls are not 50/50 as you say.

Thanks for acknowledging Dungeness B was down for unexpected failures rather than scheduled maintenance. BTW, Dungeness B is currently scheduled to be decommissioned in 2018, it is not being decommissioned now as you say (though it does look it is already falling apart a little).

Devising a sodium cooled reactor seems to me reckless: sodium burns spontaneously in contact with air and explodes in contact with water. What would have happened if Fukushima Daiichi had been cooled by sodium? Superphenix has been a failure and so is Monju; check out their incident record: it is atrocious. I am also tired to see public money wasted for tens of years on this idiotic fast breeder technology: if the industry really believes in it should finance it by itself.

Nuclear industry has been in the doldrums for so many years and, after the Fukushima disaster, its outlook is no brighter. Choosing to work in this area will probably affect your life for many years so you probably want consider carefully your options; EDF stock has lost half of its value in the last two years.

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

Dear Beppe, Zamm_ and AliShaw,

Thank you for your interesting discussion.

@AliShaw - looking at energy policy requires engin...

Dear Beppe, Zamm_ and AliShaw,

Thank you for your interesting discussion.

@AliShaw - looking at energy policy requires engineering and technical insight, but is large and by a political business. We have a lot of choices and certainly not only the narrow one that you propose: the need for nuclear. Politics will have to make a choice for the most beneficial policy.

As engineer to engineer: "Base-load" is a paradigm of the 20st century. Beppe is quite right in pointing out that modern grid management does not use base-load and peak-load any longer. It looks at marginal-cost cheap but variable input (CHP, wind, PV, CSHP, wave, tidal) and plans that 48 to 24 hour ahead. On top of that it scales in input from invariable sources with a higher marginal cost (nuclear, coal) and in case of expected over-supply asks power stations to go off-line for some period (which is in the order of hours to days), and then on a shorter notice base adds on the power with the largest flexibility but higher marginal costs: gas. Hydro is either used as low-marginal cost input or storage (order pumping in case of low-marginal-cost over-capacity; order generation in case of peak demand). New developments include the production of hydrogen or even methane with peak-wind power (so-called wind-gas), that can either be stored for use by gas generators or pumped into the gas network for heat and transport use.
We can well do without coal and nuclear in this system, as many studies have proven. In fact we will have to do without the coal - in Europe already before 2050 - if we want to prevent global warming in amounts that will not be nice.
Because of their low marginal costs, renewables are not used for flexible loads, but they deliver variable loads. That is a vital difference.

Although nuclear power is a relative low CO2-emitter (depending to a large extent on the quality of ore and used enrichment technologies), it does have other drawbacks, like the chance on a large accident by technical and/or human failure, sabotage, terrorist attack or act of war. Also, proliferation is a an issue other options do not know (the issue that Beppe refers to: can you guarantee the good intentions of the Japanese military in the coming few centuries? Or for example the Brasilian, Swedish, German, UK, French, US, Russian, Indian, Pakistani? Just look back the last century...).

Concerning waste and reprocessing. The use of reprocessed uranium and MOX (plutonium mixed with uranium) as fuel is still a marginal issue for several reasons. The first one being continuous problems in MOX production, but also in reprocessing itself (the environmental records of Sellafield, LaHague and Mayak are simply not up to scratch - with all the "upgrades" that Sellafield has seen, your argument of first of a kind is shallow). Reprocessing is simply an ongoing nightmare and should be stopped as soon as possible - the technology is too complex to engineer towards an acceptable safety level and Sellafield and LaHague count to the largest "authorised" emitters of radioactive substances on the globe. Authorised does not mean safe - in their case it is rather "unavoidable". Other options like transmutation, PRISM reactors and other genIV reactors are still all in early research phases, outcome uncertain, and all show their own drawbacks (costs, remaining waste, energy input, additional risk, long term control, to name a few). You do not base a decision on continuation of production of SNF on those.
For the remaining waste, the nightmare only thickens: most of low-level waste and medium-level waste needs to be safely stored for a period of roughly 300 years. That means 300 years of political stability to prevent human interference, apart from continuously appearing engineering problems (Asse II, the Centre de la Manche, to mention two examples). For high-level waste no attempts for long-term risk reduction have been successful so far. Even Finland, Sweden and France are still very far from something that not only functions but can also deliver sufficient protection for the long times needed.

All this taken together removes any remaining shine from nuclear. And the vital question is whether it makes any sense to continue with the technology if alternatives exist - and, as an engineer you should know that, they do exist, with less climate impact, lower costs and less over-all environmental side-effects.

Greenpeace does not yell. We are an evidence based campaigning organisation. If you want to understand (as engineer) the background behind our work - and notice how we are rather conservative than, as you claim, unrealistic, have a look at http://www.energyblueprint.info, where you will find all the work on the energy [r]evolution scenarios. For the grid-part of the discussion: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/Battle-of-the-grids/

@Zamm_: The piece is *not* misleading. You are misleading by linking last year's increase in coal use in Germany with the nuclear phase-out and closing your eyes for the wider picture. We both agree that there is still no optimal policy coming out of the German goverment (and with the German lobby-industry being what it is, it probably never will be optimal), but I think we can also agree that the direction taken in Germany is a lot more promising than the pie-in-the-sky policies and debates in the UK or the complete lack of debate in the Netherlands or Poland. We need to end up with 100% RE system for the long term. Setting the switches for that should, given the need for climate policies, be done today. Nuclear, CCS or other expensive diversions only close eyes for the technical possibilities that are already there. And, yes, that includes also grid-optimation.

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(Unregistered) AliShaw
says:

Beppe

Yes I miss typed when I said about the reactors being switched on. I meant to say they will be switched on rather than they are on,...

Beppe

Yes I miss typed when I said about the reactors being switched on. I meant to say they will be switched on rather than they are on, apologies.

With regards to Dungness B, the process of decommissioning involves toning down the production year on year and by 2018 it will produce nothing. So I still say its an invalid example.

About the sodium reactor, yes I am well aware of that but the designs are genius. Its incredibly clever, no water water goes anywhere near the core. You cannot compare Generation II reactors with Generation IV, it is irrelevant. The incident at Fukushima would have been the same even with sodium. the issue at Fukushima had nothing to do with the coolant as such. It was to do with a failure of the backup generators, which would have been prevented had they been stored on the land side of the reactors, like Fukushima Dani.

You keep talking about safety record. The power source that has caused more deaths per kWh is Hydro, so if safety is such a big issue why not attack that? Nuclear has one of the best safety records out of any industry and if you are an engineer then you should be well aware of this. The incident at Fukushima is almost unique to the geography of Japan.

These companies hundreds of millions in research and development. I am starting to get bored of your circular argument. Unless you can provide me with a technical report that backs up what you say then I am not interested, web links and news stories mean nothing.

Jan:
They deal the base load 24 hours in advance as far as I am aware. I dont want to entertain the idea of wind gas, I dont need to explain the issues of hydrogen as we are all very well aware and the production of methane just adds to greenhouse gas problems. Carbon sinks don't solve the problem they just stall it.
You know as well as I do what problems Germany have encountered abandoning Nuclear and Coal. Their country neared blackouts on many occasions, and this is an issue that cannot be ignored. Also Germany taking up coal again was because it phased out nuclear. It was the reason that was given. You can claim studies all you like but as an engineer you also know that what happens on paper and what happens in reality are two different things. The only country to try this was Germany and it has been a colossal failure.

Sellafield is the only Magox reactor in the world to attempt PUREX. It is much easier to use it with PWRs and BWRs. I have already addressed the large scale accidents in previous answers. As for good intentions that is irrelevant as you can modify most processes to make deadly substances if desired, I daresay you know that already.

Greenpeace yell and yell loudly. It is selective evidence based the lots of examples where you have yelled about things that are wrong. Plastic bags being a great example of this. Where greenpeace did not look at the full life cycle analysis and as a lecturer in environmental engineering you should know that. Let us not get hung up on plastic though.

In terms of cost per kWh its lower than most renewable sources. The storeage of waste is barrels in a trench 30 feet deep which is then filled with concrete. There is no chance the public can get to it.

I have looked at the background of greenpeaces work, it is a joke at best. I agree with the principles of greenpeace but they they go about it the wrong way. Climate change is a huge threat to life on earth and something needs to be done about it. For me nuclear is the start of that.

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

@AliShaw - Greenpeace does not in any way endorse large scale hydro (the form of hydro that is related to the large casualty number, but besides that ...

@AliShaw - Greenpeace does not in any way endorse large scale hydro (the form of hydro that is related to the large casualty number, but besides that to problems of huge ecological damage as well) and has opposed and opposes many such projects for good reasons. Safety records of micro- and small hydro on the other hand are among the best.

Concerning safety - every nuclear incident we know is unique to its circumstances. Whether that be fuel damages in TMI, Bohunice, Chernobyl, Greifswald, Fukushima, reprocessing mess-ups (Mayak, Windscale / Sellafield) or the hundreds of near misses or large safety related mess-ups we have seen over the years (think of Forsmark, Kozloduy, Paks 2). That said, there were known flaws in the GE Mark 1 design that have complicated the catastrophe. Ranging from missing vent filters to the potential vessel response on large pressure. They influenced decision moments, they influenced actual behaviour of the reactors. There are similar warnings for many other reactors in the world (personally I am among others involved in such a case concerning the Temelin 1 reactor in the Czech Republic), where operators, regulators, governments - and often the public, do not react adequately - for reasons of economy, politics, personal ambitions or sheer blind stupidity. When it goes wrong for whatever reason - human or technical failure, natural catastrophe, sabotage, terrorist attack or act of war - these issues can start playing a crucial role, like they did in Fukushima and Chernobyl. Addressing these known issues could prevent a lot worse. But because the worst accident cannot be excluded completely and safer (and cheaper and cleaner) alternatives are available, the best prevention is a nuclear phase-out, starting with the oldest and most risky reactors, and a stop on new build. Why is it, that in Environmental Impact Assessments of all new nuclear projects in the last decade, there is a flat refusal to compare the nuclear option with alternatives?

Wind-gas is currently implemented (by a former Greenpeace off-shoot - Greenpeace Energy in Germany) and might well play an important role in the future. Up till 5%, hydrogen can be mixed without problem with methane in the gas supply. Over 5% it is better to convert it first to methane (which binds CO2 and therefore is CO2 neutral - does *not* add to CO2 emissions, as you thought).
We do not count on CCS at all, because it is too expensive and too uncertain on the long term - we fully agree there.
Germany has not neared black-outs in the last years. The only moment they have brought several coal and oil power stations from cold shut-down into stand-by was the extreme cold-spell of February 2012, but this emergency stand-by capacity was *not* called upon. In contrary, Germany exported during that week electricity to France. German coal was up in 2012 because of RWE, Vattenfal and E.On trying to run their lignite power stations maximally until they need to shut down in 2016 and dumping the electricity on the export market against low prices - helped by record low carbon prices. This has nothing to do with the nuclear phase-out. The lost nuclear capacity was in 2012 already made up by higher inputs from renewables into the grid. As engineer, I indeed follow what is happening on the ground. What you call a failure is a huge engineering success. But for one or another reason you seemed to be blinded by nuclear spin and rather buy into the completely theoretical debates and factual mistakes and myths going around in the UK. Am I right you are following that debate? I just can't help but notice you jump to conclusions in ways that engineers normally avoid doing, but that I recognise from the UK debate.

I still fail to see how one can turn decentralised generation with wind, CSHP, PV, high- and low-temperature geothermal, wave, tidal and micro- and small hydro into deadly substances. Maybe I am naive... but my impression is that only large centralised sources (with centralised power structures behind them) are capable of doing so - from acid rain, over climate change, nuclear catastrophes to river silting, land salination and dam breaches.

Your plastic bag paragraph seems to need more explanation.

Nuclear is not cheaper any longer than small and micro-hydro, on-shore wind, certain geothermal projects, PV and CSHP in certain regions and prices of these continue to fall. The break even point with off-shore wind is depending on area already reached or will be reached shortly. Nuclear costs continue to climb. Something that UK citizens should by now also understand if they follow the discussions on proposed nuclear subsidies and cost developments of decommissioning and waste. The currently debated UK strike price will bind the UK into double current market prices while pushing out cheaper renewables. There is too much ideology behind this grab for money.

Maybe you did not look really at the background of Greenpeace's work. If you call, for instance, the work of the German Institute DLR (the larges modelling institute in the world) a joke, I have to doubt your claim of being an engineer. The energy [r]evolution scenario work is worldwide seen as trendsetting and high quality. Greenpeace does not do these things ourselves (though our people are involved). We use renomated institutes and academics to understand the evidence.

Nuclear is a dangerous diversion of the real debate. It delivers too little, too late, against too high cost and with too large risks (accident, sabotage / terrorism / war, proliferation, long term risk of waste). That is an evidence based conclusion.

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(Unregistered) AliShaw
says:

Jan: Every dam has a problem with methane production and as we know 1 kg of methane is equivalent to 24kg of CO2.

Wind gas is a carbon si...

Jan: Every dam has a problem with methane production and as we know 1 kg of methane is equivalent to 24kg of CO2.

Wind gas is a carbon sink it doesn't solve the problem it only delays it. The process is:

CO2 + H2 -> CH4 + H20

Methane then burns to give us:

CH4 + O2 -> CO2 + H2O

No problem solved only delayed. That what the reality is, unless you propose some sort of perpetual motion machine. In terms of near misses you can apply near misses to almost every single industry most of which have the potential to. For example between 1975 and 2012 there have been 1328 incidents ranging from near misses and fires from wind turbines. Am I going to say that wind turbines are unsafe because of that? No, because that is a terrible argument. On a side note I am pro wind power, it definitely has a role to play. Every single plant in the world has incidents on site, if you have had any industrial experience you would know and if you have had industrial experience then I would ask you not to ignore it as it just makes you look completely biased.

In terms of phasing out old reactors I couldn't agree more but they should be replaced with modern PWRs. Old reactors are inefficient and produce too much waste. I would also replace the fuel in reactors, once zirconium matrix fuel becomes commercially available. Reason being is that it has a high burn up and consumes all the fission fragments thus eliminating the problem of high level waste.

"I still fail to see how one can turn decentralised generation with wind, CSHP, PV, high- and low-temperature geothermal, wave, tidal and micro- and small hydro into deadly substances. Maybe I am naive..." - you know precisely what I mean so don't act otherwise.

The life cycle of a paper bag has a greater carbon footprint than a plastic one. Greenpeace campaigned vigorously to replace plastic bags with paper with climate change being cited as a reason.

Nuclear is around the same price per kWh, maybe a shade cheaper.

Greenpeace funded that report, as such I am wary of bias. I can't seem to find the report anywhere and from 2005? Its on the website it gives a date and a link but I cant seem to find the report on the link. Is that not rather outdated. When doing reports I have always been taught to use papers from the last 5 years as older ones are outdated.

Germany are near blackouts, legislation was passed in November 2012 to try and prevent it happening again.

If you provide me with technical, unbiased reports then I will consider your point of view. But these sources must be from nuclear experts, which you are not. The way you are writing tells me that. No nuclear engineer, even those who are against, would make their argument as one sided as you did. Also EIA doesn't work it is an advisory tool, I know that as I am currently doing a course in environmental impact assessment, I was rather startled to learn that. By the industries own admission, they are the last people who get listened to. It is a very interesting course though, but I don't think I could do it for a living. When you provide me with the reports I shall read them, when I have some time. Be in mind that i am in posession of a technical report from 2012 that was conducted by nuclear safety experts that states the risks you have stated as "minimal"

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

@AliShaw - I hope you understand the difference between carbon sink and carbon-neutral. I talked about the latter. That means no delay of the problem,...

@AliShaw - I hope you understand the difference between carbon sink and carbon-neutral. I talked about the latter. That means no delay of the problem, it means no addition to the problem.

Your wind turbine accident argument is heavily flawed. How many people were injured, how many evacuated temporarily, how many for good from incidents with wind turbines. Bringing this up in a discussion on nuclear energy shows you are following manipulation.

Greenpeace / EREC's energy [r]evolution scenario shows we do not need to replace old nuclear with new nuclear. There is simply no reason for it. The technologies you refer to are still pies in the sky, while renewables and efficiency can do the job and are already available.

Concerning the price of nuclear: the UK is currently negotiating a twice market price fixed for 40 years plus a government guarantee for the construction investment. No renewable energy ever would get that after having been 60 years on the market. Nuclear is not the same price per kWh. Your information is outdated or tweeked by other interests.

Your information about the updated German electricity legislation and blackouts is wrong and spin from the nuclear industry. The update was necessary to support further grid development and to enable a smooth transition after the decision of the Energiewende. That does not mean that they were near to black-outs. See my previous response.

The Chernobyl health report is indeed from 2005. The fact that Greenpeace financed it does not make it biased. We cannot afford being biased. It is properly peer-reviewed and the material it contains is peer-reviewed scientific material. I am not aware of any similar large scale overview made since, except for the non-peer-reviewed study of Yablokov, published by the New York Academy of Science. Therefore the 2005 Greenpeace study still stands and given the complexity of the epidemiological backgrounds of low-level radiation effects, it is unlikely we'll ever get much nearer than the broad band estimate given in that report.

Interesting you bring Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) into the discussion. I have participated in six large nuclear EIAs and one SEA. They are an advisory tool, but an important one if they are taken seriously. They are meant to enhance the quality of decisions (Aarhus Convention). Unfortunately, they are so far treated by the industry and their political backers as bureaucratic tick-off musts and therefore none of the ones I have been involved in can be characterised as in line with the law or the spirit of the law or even coming near to enhancing the quality of the final decision. That means that quite a bit of it ends - to my regret - up in court. If you are interested in this subject, I advice you to contact me over email (jan.haverkamp[at]greenpeace.org), and we can discuss it further.

The only advice I can give you is to become slightly more critical to what you get from the nuclear industry. The information I gave you and the views on it are unbiased and if you would take the time to look a bit further into the reports I mentioned and their sources, or do your own research, you'd find many other nuclear experts backing me up. You'll find an industry opposing some of the arguments I brought forward - follow the money there. Also, realise that nuclear engineers know something about parts of a nuclear power station in the technical sense. For nuclear power in its ecological, social and economic environment, you will also need a lot of people with a completely different background than that of a nuclear engineers. Understanding nuclear is team-work. In that, I am a generalist (knowing a bit about a lot), working in close cooperation with many specialists (knowing a lot about very little). Together we can come to something to approaches nuclear expertise.

For the links to reports, I just refer you to the sources used in the many Greenpeace publications you find on our home-page. The reasons that the industry pushed their own non-transparent data (often with a marketing background!) into reports of the European Nuclear Energy Forum, where I participated for Greenpeace, and our transparent peer-review data from independent scientific sources were marginalised as "Greenpeace claims" was one of the reasons for NGOs to leave that forum. The nuclear industry is not about arguments, but about power and money - unfortunately. It is a game I deeply detest, and I will continue to try in my lifetime to get the discussion back to the facts. The facts speak against nuclear.

By the way - there are many good reasons to be against the extravagant use of plastic bags (and paper bags) we see today. Greenpeace campaigned for reduce, re-use and recycle - not for replacing plastic bags with paper bags. Be more precise. It will help you in your further career. And take your own shopping bag with you if you go the next time to a supermarket ;-)

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(Unregistered) Beppe
says:

Alishaw,
hydro is perfectly safe: just look at tbe Vajont dam safety record, after so many years the dam is still there! The problem was just th...

Alishaw,
hydro is perfectly safe: just look at tbe Vajont dam safety record, after so many years the dam is still there! The problem was just that the stupid Mount Toc decided to collapse into the basin. The operators of the dam can't complain too much tough because there were a lot of early signs of the impending catastrophe; they decided to ignore them for profit reasons.

Nuke is safe in theory but in practice things go wrong much more often than the industry tells us in its plant designs.
Fukushima too was touted to be safe but, again, early warnings of a possible catastrophe have been ignored -- again for profit reasons.

BTW, Fukushima 1 lost not only the emergency generators and, by large, the batteries but also the main cooling water pumps and hence the ultimate heat sink so, even if the generators survived, the reactor could probably not be cooled enough.

Fukushima 2 survived barely, also because it had submbersible water pumps (Tepco did not want to upgrade Fuku 1 to use the same pumps, guess why). Note the "survived barely" means Fuku 2 has been on the brink of meltdown for days after the quake and it will take several *years* to repair it -- if ever.

Obviously all types of plants have accidents but after so many years people around Chernobyl are still fighting with cesium and the same will be in Fukushima. Why do we have to go through this? Had Fukushima been a fossil fuel plant I would not be trying to buy food from the most remote regions of Japan now.

Please understand that engineering choices are ultimately driven by cost and that the way money flows has little to do with the (more or less) brilliant design of a piece of machinery.
For example, several years ago, Fiat stated that it had introduced too much robotization in its then new Melfi plant -- the reason being that with a little less robots and a little more workers manufacturing would have been cheaper. This is probably a little depressing if you love technology but still.
Besides, nuclear is not even cost competitive (see my previous post about Japanese government estimates).

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(Unregistered) AliShaw
says:

Jan,

Of course the wind turbine argument is flawed, that is why I said I would not use that argument. I was using it to illustrate a poi...

Jan,

Of course the wind turbine argument is flawed, that is why I said I would not use that argument. I was using it to illustrate a point. It is a poor argument, yet it is the argument that you appear to be using against nuclear.

It depends entirely on your source of CO2, if you source it from a sink then its a store if from the air its neutral. However I imagine that the efficiency would be shockingly low for air. The energy needed to do this is huge. To do this on an industrial scale would require a constant energy supply as for peak efficiency this process has to operate at around 600 - 800 oC. Wind turbines do not provide consistent energy because of wind fluctuations.

Any report that titles itself energy [r]evolution is clearly biased and as such I cannot use it when making up my mind on the issue. Also please stop saying the term [r]evolution as I just cannot take anyone who says that seriously.

Yes these companies are looking at 40 year set prices to guarentee the construction cost. Not so bad when you consider upto 100 year life times. By any chance do you know where the money comes from for renewable technologies? Well I do. It comes from every single major electrical generation company under the Renewable Obligation Certificate. So the very reason renewables require relatively low investment is that they make a financial killing from the money made from fines given to edf, etc.
In case you don't know how this scheme works it basically set out targets in the UK what needs to be produced from renewable sources. Any company that doesnt meet these targets gets fined and this is passed onto companies who develop renewable energy. If this scheme was changed or taken away then the tax payer would have to foot the bill and the development of renewables would come to a stand still. There are similar schemes throughout Europe. So when boasting about the financial viability of renewables I would ask you to keep that in mind. My information in terms of price comes from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2010, so it is pretty in date. If you are going to get into conspiracy theorys about Germany then Im interested in talking about this, what is happening in Germany is because of Nuclear phase out, that is a fact. If you wish to bury your head in the sand about in then go ahead.

While we completely disagree on the nuclear issue I do find EIA very interesting, so I may take you up on that offer. I believe it has the potential to enhance many projects although I think that it does need to be improved as it does have failing in analyzing things such as sustainability for example. Quite coincidentally I am currently doing a project to conduct a basic EIA for a relatively large scale hydro project. While this is not an ideal hydro plant Id rather talk about a project that is actually happening rather than talking about a hypothetical situation.

I dont read what the industry says as I mistrust it as much as I mistrust greenpeace sources. I always look for independent reports, those who have many interests. I like researching this way as you can trust what they say more as having many interests means you have more than 1 revenue stream, meaning a company will find it much harder to manipulate that researcher. Also generally speaking a nuclear project would require at least 2 EIAs, thats according to someone who worked in the field for 20 years. As I understand it one of the failings in EIAs is with Nuclear, if not failing then a unique case. As I believe that Nuclear comes under Annex 1, whereas most projects seem to come under Annex 2.

There certainly were sections of greenpeace that campaigned for replacement. I always reuse plastic bags to the point that they break as the number of them does need to be reduced. I dont think anyone can argue against that.

Beppe:
Hydro is safe? Well two days ago the 3 gorges dam had a water breach that killed 701 people. Not to mention the 1.6 million people that were displaced by the dams construction.

In terms of cost a lot of the money that funds renewables comes from the pockets of major electrical generating companies. Very similar scheme to europe. If the generators had survived it could have crash cooled the reactor. Engineering choices are down to cost and early data shows that metallic fuels in fast reactors have a wider profit margin than traditional reactors and fuels.

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

@AliShaw - conclusion of this discussion.
AliShaw, I do not know which influence on you made you dismiss Greenpeace reports before you have actu...

@AliShaw - conclusion of this discussion.
AliShaw, I do not know which influence on you made you dismiss Greenpeace reports before you have actually read them and seen with your own eyes that these are transparent and in most cases properly peer-reviewed reports. Greenpeace cannot afford to work under the standards of a professional research journalist. If we would, we'd loose credibility on every level of influence.

Thanks for making clear that you are subject to the debate in the UK. The UK seems to be good in debating (one against the other, scoring points) but less good in discourse (exchanging views, weighing the facts, reaching a common outcome). The energy debate in the UK currently contains a lot of myths and it is worthwhile to concentrate on evidence based information.

The term "[r]evolution" clearly shows what needs to be done today. Because of climate change, we need a very fast change in energy policies and infrastructure. There is no way out. It needs a change of very basic, one century old paradigms. Hence the word revolution. But it needs to be done realistically on the basis of really available technology and realistic developments. Hence the word evolution. For that reason we have put from the start the [r] into brackets. Maybe your bias is... eh... biased?

The UK support for RE is basically flawed so far. The UK was reluctant to follow the Danish, German, Spanish and Portuguese successful implementation of Feed-in-Tariffs, but indeed went on the support mechanism you describe. You can see in the real numbers what the effect was. The UK plays only a minor role in the development of RE and a huge opposition to it. Be careful with OECD numbers. There was a time that the IEA was trying to pay an independent role, but that seems to be over. Under influence of the (nuclear promoting) NEA, numbers tend to be leaning pro-nuclear. But even then, the NEA numbers reach the conclusion that nuclear delivers too little, too late, against a too high price and with open standing issues like waste, proliferation and rest-risk unsolved.

I motivate you also to read industry information. It helps you learn to find your way in the jungle of policy making. Learning what you can trust why. And what not.

You're very welcome to contact me on the EIA issue. With the Aarhus and Espoo Conventions and related EU regulations, it is a potentially powerful tool, although formalities can also be abused and are abused.

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(Unregistered) Beppe
says:

A French-government funded agency, the Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire (IRSN) or the Institute for Radiati...

A French-government funded agency, the Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire (IRSN) or the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety estimates the cost of a major nuclear accident in France to about €300 billion ($400 billion). This would be 25% of France GDP.